The Seahawks, Cool Hand Luke, and Dirty Laundry

On one hand you have Cool Hand Luke. In one of the best movie scenes (of many in that movie) in history, we see an obviously overmatched Paul Newman (Luke) continue to fight and get his tail whipped by George Kennedy (Dragline). It’s a scene that cements in the minds of the other inmates that Luke is a man who against insurmountable odds will never quit–and you have to admire him because of it. He’s a man of conviction and no matter the cost, he’s going to do what he’s going to do, and to hell with the rest of you. They admired him because he did what none of them could or would ever have the stones to do. It’s the essence of Luke, odds be damned, he lifts his a middle finger to the world.

On the other hand you have the Star Wars prequels, a giant franchise (the original trilogy) universally loved for good reason (except for the ewoks) that was relentlessly run into the ground each time one of those horrid movies was released.

It defied reason and annoyed nearly anyone who held the first movies dear (and if you defend the prequels, then you’re simply not being honest with yourself and you probably think that Christmas Vacation is better than the original Vacation, when that’s a comedic impossibility–just watch them back-to-back and you’ll see, oh yes, you’ll see).

While I admire Luke for his persistence and relentlessness, I do NOT admire the prequels and wish they never happened and would like them to go away.

For me, I’d put the 2010 Seattle Seahawks in the Prequel category. I want this season to end and I wish it never happened. Their uneven performance this year (or rather for the past three years) has made me feel like a hostage and now that I have the NFL Redzone channel, I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing still watching. Had I not DVR’d the game, I would have missed the amazing comeback by Philadelphia over New York, but I didn’t, the Redzone had me covered. Before I actually tuned into the channel, I thought that the Redzone would be a bad idea, because you couldn’t really see how a game developed or get a feel for any of the games, but after one viewing I was convinced. What an incredible concept. Ideally, I’d like two TVs, one tuned to the Seahawks game and one tuned to NFL Redzone. One of my buddies has the ability to do just that at his house and it’s perhaps that reason–more than anything–that I regret not being his next-door neighbor anymore…

If the strong desire to change the channel isn’t an indicator that I’m not enjoying my 2010 Seahawks experience, then I don’t know what is. The problem for me, however, is that the Seahawks are in my blood. They are the team I root for no matter how terrible they are. It’s simply always going to be that way. So while I hate what I’m seeing on the field lately, I don’t change the channel. I stick it out and end up being disappointed. But despite all of that they are still alive for the playoffs, and while I conceptually always want Seattle to make the playoffs, I don’t have much of an interest in seeing them get slaughtered on national television. It’s one thing when the evisceration is limited to those in attendance and the paltry regional TV audience, but everyone? I just don’t want that kind of thing shared. You don’t want to air out your dirty laundry in public, right?

For another movie reference, I kind of feel like the dad and brother in Little Miss Sunshine leading up to the last scene. They don’t want Olive to go onstage because they are worried that she’s going to be embarrassed and that the crowd will destroy her.

I feel that way about the Seahawks and the possibility that they could sneak into the playoffs with a 7-9 record. They will be ridiculed, justifiably I might add, by the media and fanbases across the NFL landscape before the game is played. And in all likelihood, they will get pummeled by New Orleans or the New York Giants or whoever has the 5 seed in the opening round. Now it’s possible (because nearly everything is possible in the NFL) that Seattle might actually win their opening round game. Anything can happen once the playoffs start. But the very idea that they have a shot is shameful. A team that has lost eight games (thus far) by an average of 20.75 points per game. For those scoring at home, that’s nearly a three-touchdown beating, good for LAST in the NFL by a nearly 5 points (Arizona got beat by an average of 16 points per game). A team that loses routinely and is soundly beaten in those loses simply doesn’t deserve to get the chance. And frankly, none of the other NFC West teams deserve a shot either. St. Louis gave up 12.1 points in losses and San Francisco gave up 13.7.

Speaking of disappointment, I think we need to discuss the fans who participated in the “Charlie” chants. I have two questions for those folks:

(1) Are you serious? and
(2) You’ve seen him play, right?

I don’t have it out for Whitecaps, I gave him the benefit of the doubt because of what Pete Carroll and John Schneider said about him. I liked that he’s a big, athletic guy with a strong arm and even though he had zero regular-season NFL playing experience, he played a ton in college at a big-time program and is the son of an ex-NFL QB. All of this is great. Also, I understand that it’s unfair to judge a guy off of his very limited time playing meaningful minutes in the NFL… but…. those minutes have been abysmal. He is erratic and inaccurate and this would be excusable if he was a young guy, but he’s 28 (on the borderline of young, but not really). I just don’t see much promise in the guy and if the best reason to chant his name is because he is not Matt Hasselbeck, then perhaps that’s not a very good reason.

Now, has Hasselbeck earned the scorn? Oh my, yes. In abundance. He has been so maddeningly bad lately that I might be bailing on him and I love the guy. But I only want a guy replaced if there is a legitimate option to replace him. I do not see that guy on this roster. Hasselbeck, deserves the opportunity to go down with the ship. There is no need to “see what we have in Charlie” because we know–he’s just not very good. If you judged Whitecaps’s play thus far as if it were a job interview or an audition, would you give the guy a callback, or would you look elsewhere? That’s what I thought.

I just think that this whole Seahawks season deserves a night in the box.